gordianplotfandomcom-20200214-history
METHODS OF EXPRESSION ENERGY
METHODS OF EXPRESSION ENERGY ENERGY METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ENERGY. Scattering shot do little execution. —Rxv. E. 0. HAVEN. He that hath knowledge spareth his words. —PROVERBS. Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply, and with undivided mind, for the truth of your speaking. —CARLYLE. S HERIDAN, returning one morning from the meeting of Parliament, and being asked by a friend for the news of the day, replied that he had enjoyed a laugh over the speeches of Mr. Fox and Lord Stormont, the latter of whom began by declaring in a slow, solemn, nasal monotone, that 'when—he—considered—the enormity—and the measures— just — proposed, he was — away in a— torrent — of passion — and a whirlwind — of im-pet-u-os-i-ty. ' Mr. Fox was described as springing to his feet, and beginning, lightning-like, thus: 'Mr. Speaker, such is the magnitude such the importance such the vital interest of the question that I cannot but implore I cannot but adjure the House to come to it with the utmost calmness the utmost coolness the utmost deliberation. 'Each manner is here significant of the real state of the writer's mind: but the one is characterized by immobility, which is death; the other by movement, which is the effect and evidence of life. Both are clear, but the former is crawling, colorless, feeble; the latter is anxious, active, and hence communicative. A thought may be expressed clearly in the highest degree, yet be capable of more 94 METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ENERGY. 95 effective presentation. Thus, again, in the following, how much more impressive, though not more perspicuous, is the interrogative than the declarative would be: Can gray hairs render folly venerable?—Junius. Who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely? —Shakespeare. Energy may therefore be defined as the force, vigor, or strength of expression, whereby the mind addressed is more or less powerfully influenced or interested. In general, it is promoted by whatever promotes clearness, since what is obscure is, in the measure of its obscurity, not felt. Hence in the choice, number, and arrangement of words, many of the principles which render language clear, render it also energetic. A first requisite of vigorous statement is simplicity, which is the economy of means. Its true name, in eloquence proper, in oratory, is popularity, a quality that consists in the use of language composed of expressions familiar to the majority. Popular language is the common ground on which all classes of society meet and communicate with one another. Its best part is Saxon, the strength of which has become one of the truisms of literature. The vernacular carries weight, too, because it is interwoven with the sensibilities of those who use it. Swiss soldiers in the Austrian service used to be forbidden to sing their country's songs in their native tongue because it tempted so many to desertion. Another essential is propriety, or justness, including precision; that is, the choice not only of good English, but of such English as shall express our meaning, no more, no less, no other. Ill-chosen words diminish perspicuity, without which we can never be strong. Says La Bruyere on this subject: 'Among all the different expressions which may render one and the same tlacm. sgoX. , 96 COMPLETE RHETORIC. only one is good; we do not always fall in with it in speaking or in writing. It nevertheless exists, and every other except that is feeble. ' That the want of propriety may be felt, it suffices that the exact correspondence of the term to the idea is not felt. If readers or hearers do not distinctly notice that the term is improper, they at least do not receive from it the impression, the stroke, so to speak, which they should receive; the hammer has struck by the side of the nail or struck the nail on the side. " Specific, individual words, being more definite and lifelike, are to be chosen in preference to abstract ones. The former give a distinct picture, readily seized; the latter, a vague statement, grasped with difficulty. The great preachers particularize, dealing little in abstractions. When the Savior would express the goodness or the providence of God, he does it in concrete terms: 'Are. not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. " Even the very hairs of your head are numbered. ' Great orators, great dramatists, are direct, not general. Observe how Shakespeare, his object being to excite horror, puts into the mouth of Antony the most particular expressions: 0, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ! Over the wounds now do I prophesy, — Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue, — A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; Domestic fury, and fierce civil strife, Shall cumber all the parts of Italy; Blood and destruction shall be so in use, 1M. Vinet. METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ENERGY. 97 And dreadful objects so familiar, That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war; All pity chok'd with custom of fell deeds; And Ciesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side, come hot from hell, Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice, Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war; That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial. To economize space — so far as this can be done consistently with the adequate expression of the meaning — is to economize the recipient's mental energy, and hence to augment the effect; for the more time and power it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less can be used to realize the thought conveyed. 'As, when the rays of the sun are collected into the focus of a burning glass, the smaller the spot is which receives them, compared with the surface of the glass, the greater is the splendor, so, in exhibiting our sentiments by speech, the narrower the compass of words is, wherein the thought is comprised, the more energetic is the expression. Accordingly, we find that the very same sentiment expressed diffusely, will be admitted barely to be just; expressed concisely, will be admired as spirited. ' A word, if apt, may tell more than a sentence. A picture may say more than a volume. What is suggested is more vivid than what is told. Sir Joshua Reynolds says that Titian knew how to place upon the canvas the image and character of any object he attempted, by a few strokes of the pencil, and that he thus produced a truer representation than any of his predecessors who finished every hair. So the great writers and speakers group instead of analyzing, knowing well that in these days men think and act quickly, with all their faculties on the alert: 7 98 COMPLETE RHETORIC. If thou be'st he — but 0, how fallen, how changed!—Mtiton. Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of 'Lightchafres, ' large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the Fire-flies! But—!—Carlyle. There's no one now to share my cup. — Tiusekeray. Brevity is misplaced, however, if it involves the omission of words necessary to perspicuity. Nor should it be sought alike on every subject and occasion. The ignorant require more explanation than the intelligent. Writing may be more concise than speaking. A reader can re-peruse a sentence, if necessary, or stop and think. A hearer can scarcely pause, without loss, to catch the meaning. Wherever the purpose is persuasion, a certain time, as the skilful orator well knows, is requisite for working up the feelings. Emphasis is increased both by repetition of words and by varying the form of presentation: Charge, Chester. charge! on, Stanley, on !—Scott. None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserve the fain—Dryden. If I were an American, as I am all Englishman, while a foreign troop were landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms — never, never, never! —Chatham. 'Educate the people, ' was the admonition of Penn to the commonwealth he founded. 'Educate the people, ' was the last legacy of Washington to the Republic of the United States. 'Educate the people, ' was the unceasing exhortation of Jefferson. —Afacaulay. A chief excellence of oratory is the power to amplify a thought by unfolding it in diverse directions, presenting it in various lights, each distinct from the other in appearance rather than in reality. Observe, in the following extract, the return to a single, central idea, each time from METHODS OF EX PICESSION —ENERGY. 99 an advanced, a higher point, to the last sentence, which is a condensed conclusion of the whole: Power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish; and it will find other and worse means for its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power not standing on its own honor, and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principte. —Burke. A résumé, or summary, which is a form of reiteration, is often very beneficial. It assists the mind as the reaper is assisted in carrying his sheaf by the band which surrounds and compresses it: 'In the senate and, for the same reason, in a newspaper, it is a virtue to reiterate your meaning; . . . . variation of the words, with a substantial identity of the sense and dilution of the truth, is oftentimes a necessity. . . . Time must be given for the intellect to eddy about a truth, and to appropriate its bearings, . . . and this is obtained by varying the modes of presenting it— now putting it directly before the eye, now obliquely, now in an abstract shape, now in the concrete; all which being the proper technical discipline for dealing with such cases, ought no longer to be viewed as a licentious mode of style, but as the just style in respect of those licentious circumstances. And the true art for such popular display is to continue the best forms for appearing to say something new, when in reality you are but echoing yourself; to break up massy chords into running vibrations, and to mask by slight differences in the manner a verbal identity in the substance. ' 100 COMPLETE RHETORIC. As a rule, an excess of connectives is enfeebling. Thus: The Academy set up by Cardinal Richelieu, to amuse the wits of that age and country, and divert them from raking into his politics and ministry, brought this into vogue; and the French wits have. for this last age, been wholly turned to the refinement of their style and language; and, indeed, with such success that it can hardly be equalled, and runs equally through their verse and prose. —Temple. Omission of the conjunction favors that rapidity which marks and imparts energy. Note the almost simultaneous connection of cause and effect: For there is wrath gone out from the Lord— the plague is begun. —Numbers. What a concentration of calamity: And every eye Glared lightning, and short pernicious fire. Among th' accursed, that wither'd all their strength, And of their wonted vigor left them drain'd, Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen. —Ifilton. Observe the fine effect of asyndeton in the following: One effort, one to break the circling host, They form, unite, charge, waver—all is lost!—Byron. On the other hand, emphasis not seldom requires the multiplication of these particles. It may be desired to make the mind rest on each of the objects enumerated: Love was not in their looks, either to God, Or to each other, but apparent guilt, And shame, and perturbation. and despair. Anger and obstinacy, and hate, and guile. —Milton. The violations of conciseness are: 1. Tautology, or the useless repetition of the same sense in different words: Never did Atticus succeed better in gaining the universal love and esteem of all men. —Spectator. METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ENERGY. 101 Particularly, as to the affairs of this world, integrity hath many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation and deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and more secure way of dealing with the world; it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it. The arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them. —Tillotson. Pleonasm, which is not so much a useless repetition of sense as a mere superfluity of expression: • I went home full of a great many serious reflections. —Guardian. If he happens to have any leisure upon his hands. —Spectator. • He saw that the reason why witchcraft was ridiculed was, because it was a phase of the miraculous. —Leeky. Until this be altered for the better, I do not see that we are likely to grow much wiser, or that though political power may pass into different hands, that it will be exercised more purely or sensibly than it has been. —Dr. Arnold. Verbosity, or unnecessary profuseness, to remedy which it is often necessary to re-cast as well as to blot. It differs from pleonasm and tautology in being more pervasive. Forms of it are prolixity, the enumeration of things either trivial, or so obvious that they might better have been left to the reader to supply; paraphrase, a too diffuse explanation of something difficult or obscure; circumlocution, a roundabout mode of speech, allowable only when direct assertion might be offensive, or for the sake of variety or emphasis. Euphemism often takes the form of the last, as in the following, commended by Longinus: The appointed journey, ' for death; 'The fallen are borne forth publicly by the state, ' that is buried. What has been said requires the further caution, that the coupling of synonymous words and phrases is admissible either to put greater stress on prominent points or to explain an obscure term by one that is clear. A sentence is to be judged with reference to both th. o. l. tat %. "0, 102 COMPLETE RHETORIC. . impression. The lengthened Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' expresses more, and expresses it more vividly, than the direct 'Shall not God do right ?' The first serves as an argument in support of the sentiment, since it represents the Deity in a character to which injustice is peculiarly unsuitable. The fault to be chiefly guarded against, is the repetition of trite and unimpressive forms. The importance of attention to order, with a view to perspicuity, has already been noticed. Energy, in arrangement, depends (1) on the right disposition of the capital parts. The more emphatic ideas should be expressed in the more emphatic positions, which are, in general, the beginning and the end of the sentence, especially the latter. Unless otherwise determined by the thought, the movement should be from the weakest or least striking statements to those which are stronger, the strongest being reserved for the last. The following are improvable: His government gave courage to the English barons to carry farther their opposition. —Hitme. There will be few in the next generation who will not at least be able to write and read. —Addison. Yet this, like all unusual methods, can only be occasionally employed. —Dr. Bascom. The temperament of our language is phlegmatic, like that of our climate. —Dr. Uamâ bell. All these — the third excepted —answer well enough the requirements of clearness; but all would be strengthened by a different collocation: His government gave courage to the English barons to carry their opposition farther. There will be few in the next generation who will not be able at least to read and write. Yet this, like all unusual methods, can be employed only occasionally. METHODS OF EXPRESSION -ENERGY. 103 The temperament of our language, like that of our climate, is phlegmatic. (2) on the preservation of unity, the subserviency of every part to one principal affirmation. The usual precepts — to be received, however, with limitations—are: not to shift the scene in the course of the same sentence; not to crowd into one sentence ideas which have no natural connection with the leading proposition; not to add clauses after a full and perfect close; to avoid an excess of parentheses. These faults can be perceived in the following: Ojeda sent his stolen gold and Indians home to Saint Domingo, in order that more men and supplies might in return be dispatched to him; and he inaugurated the building of his new town by a foray into the territories of a neighboring Indian chief, who was reported to possess much gold. —Ilelps. And here it was often found of absolute necessity to influence or cool the passions of the audience, especially at Rome, where Tully spoke; and with whose writings young divines, I mein those among them who read old authors, are more conversant than with those of Demosthenes; who, by many degrees, excelled the other, at least as an orator. —Swift. The next day upon the plains, Dr. Henchman, one of the prebends of Salisbury, met the king, the Lord Wilmot and Philips then leaving him to go to the sea-coast to find a vessel, the doctor conducting the king to a place called Heale, three miles from Salisbury, belonging then to Sergeant Hyde, who was afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and then in possession of the widow of his elder brother; a house that stood alone from neighbors and from any highway, where, coming in late, he supped with some gentlemen that were accidentally in the house which could not very well be avoided. —Clarendon. There are few principles of energy which are not violated by one or more of these passages. The remedy, in all such cases, lies in transposition or resolution, or in both. The disjointed or overcrowded sentence should be broken up into distinct and more congruous ones; the prominent in idea should be prominent in position; particles should 104 COMPLETE RHETORIC. be concealed in the middle; a significant and pregnant word or phrase should conclude the assertion. Youthful writers not infrequently commit the error of combining in one sentence irrelevant materials— an error which Artemas Ward burlesques by saying, 'I am an early riser, but my wife is a Presbyterian. ' Of course, attention absorbed in the search for relations that do not exist is so much abstracted from relations that do exist. One looks in vain for the point of connection, looking at nothing, yet struggling to see something. It should be added that the parenthesis, which may or may not be indicated by the curves, may, if not too long, too frequent, or too irrelevant, be of great value for emphasis or explanation. Thus: Some of his own works show that he had at times strong, excellent common sense; and that he had the virtue of charity to a high degree is indubitable; but his friends (of whom he made woful choice) have taken care to let the world know that in behavior he was an ill-natured bear, and in opinions as senseless a bigot as an old washerwoman— a brave composition for a philosopher!—Horace Walpole on Dr. Johnson. It should also be borne in mind that different particulars, however numerous, are not objectionable if kept in due subordination to the chief idea or statement: He urged to him that the desperate situation of the Duke of Normandy made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of battle, but that the king of England, in his own country, beloved by his own subjects, provided with every supply, had more certain and less dangerous means of insuring to himself the victory; that the Norman troops, elated, on the one hand, with the highest hopes, and seeing, on the other, no resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to the last extremity, and being the flower of all the warriors on the Continent, must be regarded as formidable to the English; that if their first fire, which is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish for want of action, if they were harassed with small skirmishes. shortened in provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ENERGY. 105 and deep roads during the winter season, which was approaching, they must fall an easy and bloodless prey to their enemy; that if a general action were delayed, the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their properties as well as liberties were exposed from those rapacious invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would render his army invincible; that at least, if he thought it necessary to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person, but reserve, in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty and independence of the kingdom; and that having once been so unfortunate as to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy relics, to support the pretentions of the Duke of Normandy, it were better that the command of the army should be entrusted to another, who, not being bound by those sacred ties, might give the soldiers more assured hopes of a prosperous issue to the combat. —Hume. The last example brings us again to the division of sentences into periodic and loose. The former, concentrating its force at a point, gives strength and dignity, but is too stately for the highest energy. The latter, being easier, less obtrusive, and more consonant with the spontaneous action of thought, must be the staple of composition. Finally, the unity of the paragraph or of the essay, like that of the sentence, implies the presence of one governing image, around which facts group themselves in progressive transition, according to their relative value and pertinence. From the previous consideration of figures, it is evident that they conduce much to energy of expression by contributing to distinctness, to emphasis, to variety, and to conciseness. What has been said and exemplified elsewhere, in detail, may, so far as it relates to the present point, be summed up, illustratively, as follows: He struck me as much like a steam-engine in tmwsers. —Sidney Smith on Daniel Webster. The head is on the block—the axe rushes—dumb lies the world; that wild, yelling world with all its madness is behind thee. —Carlyle. 106 COMPLETE RHETORIC. God puts our prayer, like rose-leaves between the leaves of his book of remembrance. and when the volume is opened at last, there shall be a precious fragrance springing from them. —Spioyeen. Life is not as idle ore. But iron dug from central gloom. And heated hot with burning fears. And dipt in baths of hissing tears. Anil batter'd with the shocks of doom. To shape and use. — Teavsysoa. The placing of the words hi &sentence resembles, in some degree, the disposition of the figures in a historic piece. As the principal figure ought to have that situation in the picture which will, at the first glance, fix the eye of the spectator. so the emphatical word ought to have that place in the sentence which will give it the greate at advantage for fixing the attention of the hearer. —Dr. Campbell. Climax is a symbol of cumulation, and cumulation is force. Contrast, besides saving words, is intrinsically energetic. Of two contrasted ideas, each is a mirror to the other, and a mirror gives vision. Few simple expedients are so effective as Interrogation, which, inviting silent rejoinder, makes the hearer active in the reception of truth. Did you never see lips move or heads nod or shake in answer to a speaker's question? Hyperbole is a favorite figure among energetic writers. The life-giving power of the figure of Vision is splendidly illustrated in some of the sacred prophecies. A Boston preacher once electrified an assembly by apostrophising Voltaire as being in the world of the lost: 'What think you, what think you, Voltaire, of Christianity now?'Soliloquy is of the nature of apostrophe, and both are employed by the most passionate forms of eloquence. Massillon, preaching on the text, 'Are there few that be saved?' after seeming to restrict to a narrow, a narrower, and the narrowest limit the number of the elect, broke out with, 0 God, where are thine elect?' The whole audience are said to have sprung to their feet, METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ENERGY. 107 EXERCISES. Criticize and amend: It is the vividness of the ideas presented which arouse emotion, and thus carry over conviction into persuasion. —Dr. Bascom. Violations of simplicity, whatever the type, show either that the mind of the writer is tainted with affectation, or else that an effort is making to conceal conscious poverty of sentiment, under loftiness of expression. '—Dr. Townsend. Redundancy is sometimes permissible for the surer conveyance of meaning, for emphasis, and in the language of poetic embellishment. 2—Alfred Ayres. I find several noteworthy examples of bad diction in an article in a recent number of an Australian magazine. —Ibid. 5. Indeed, the impartial critic who will take the trouble to examine any of Mr. Emerson's essays at all carefully, is quite sure to come to the conclusion that Mr. Emerson has seen everything he has ever made the subjects of his essays very much as London is from the top of Saint Paul's in a fog. —Ibid. (The fog, it will occur to most, is before the eyes of Mr. Ayres. ) 8. Be this objection valid, or be it not, ' cultured ' haring but two syllables, while its synonym cultivated has four, it is likely to find favor with those who employ short words when they convey their meaning as well as long ones. —Ibid. I do not trumpet water as an infallible nostrum—as a universal panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. --/. S. Blackie. It was almost intolerable to be borne. —Hawthorne. 9. We are both agreed that the sentence was wrong. —Buckle. His first appearance in the fashionable world at London, from whence he eame lately to Bath. —Smollet. Perhaps we might venture to add that it is hardly explicable, except as a portrait drawn by a skillful hand guided by love, and by love intensified by the consciousness of some impassable barrier. — Leslie Stephen. 12. Our sight is the most perfect, and most delightful of all our senses. —Addison. I The Art of Speech. 2 Verhaliet. 108 COMPLETE RHETORIC. A monarchy, limited like ours, may be placed, for aught I know, as it has been often represented, just in the middle point, from whence a deviation leads, on the one hand, to tyranny, and on the other, to anarchy. —Bolingbroke. Though the work was prepared for pupils of an advanced grade, and has been written in a style adapted to their comprehension, yet it was deemed of primary importance to set forth every point perspicuously and intelligibly. —Quackenbos. Beauty does not afford the imagination so high a degree of pleasure as sublimity; but, characterizing a greater variety of objects than the latter quality, it is a more fruitful source of gratification to that faculty. —Ibid. That people, after they had once begun, pursued the business vigorously, and with all imaginable contempt of the government; and though in the hubbub of the first day there appeared nobody of name and reckoning, but the actors were really of the dregs of the people, yet they discovered by the countenance of that day that few men of rank were forward to engage themselves on behalf of the bishops, whereupon more considerable persons every day appeared against them as heretofore in the case of St. Paul— Acts xiii, 50: 'The Jews stirred up devout and honorable women, '—the women and ladies of the best quality declared themselves of the party, and, with all the reproaches imaginable, made war upon the bishops as introducers of popery and superstition, against which they avowed themselves to be irreconcilable enemies, and their husbands did not long defer the owning of the same spirit, insomuch that within a few days the bishops durst not appear in the streets, nor in ally courts or houses, but were in danger of their lives; and such of the lords as durst be in their company, or seemed to desire to rescue them from violence, had their persons assaulted, insomuch that they were glad to send for some of those great men who did, indeed, govern the rabble, though they appeared not in it, who readily came, and redeemed them out of their hands, so that by the time new orders came from England there was scarce a bishop left in Edinburgh, and not a minister who durst read the Liturgy in any church. —Lord Clarendon. Category:Style